


City Errands

by iridiah



Series: Niris Hazan [2]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Cobalt Company, Gen, The Defias Brotherhood, World of Warcraft: Classic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:42:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29780466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridiah/pseuds/iridiah
Summary: Niris takes care of some things in the city. (Written for a Cobalt Company prompt that asked us to show our OC interacting with some of the game's NPCs.)
Series: Niris Hazan [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2188818
Kudos: 1





	City Errands

“I tell you, Edna,” says Niris with a sigh, setting her basket on the shop counter, “I will never find my way around the New City.”

Edna Mullby laughs and plants her elbows on the counter. “No one calls it the New City anymore, Nir. It’s just Stormwind now.” She makes a rueful face. “People are in an awful hurry these days to forget some things.”

Niris shakes her head and begins lifting jars from the basket to set on the counter. “Well, I’ll never learn the knack of it myself, but I can’t say I blame them as can for doing it. Better that than lugging a grudge around as long as some.”

“Can you blame the ones with grudges, either?”

Niris hesitates, hand still on a jar, and fixes Edna with a glittering golden gaze. “No. But what a man does with a grudge, that  _will_ fall on him.”

“Hn,” says Edna, and turns one of the jars to read the label. “Poached pears? Lovely.”

“If Brother Neals asks, it was wine I brought you, and never mind the poor man’s never yet made a cask fit for drinking by anyone save himself. But enough spice and sugar in it and you can poach anything. Pears wouldn’t come ripe this year with the drought, so. Best solution for all.” She unpacks the final jars. “And honey from the Abbey hives.”

“Bless.” Edna briskly shifts jars into rows and reaches beneath the counter for the ledger. “The whole lot to the Abbey’s credit?”

Niris shakes her head. “No, I’ll have to spend some of that today. We’ll need a pound of salt, a half-dozen spools of good thread.” She pauses, considers. “And a copper-bag of those strawberry drops.”

Edna raises an eyebrow, smiling. “Growing a sweet tooth at your age, Niris Hazan?”

Niris cocks a hip and tosses back an imaginary mane of hair. “And what’s  _at my age_ mean, Edna Mullby? I’ll do as I please at any age.”

Edna laughs. “So you will, and I’d never doubt it.” She lifts the panel to come out from behind the counter and begins moving around the shop to collect the priestess’s order.

“Speaking of at  _our_ age --” Niris leans against the counter and folds her arms. “How’s Thurman’s back?”

“Oh, better. Much better.” Edna stands on tiptoe to reach the jar of strawberry drops from a top shelf, where the sweets are kept out of reach of youthful fingers. “That salve’s a wonder, thank you very much.”

“Good. And Danee and the baby?”

Edna turns to give Niris a fleeting but radiant smile. “Thriving. That little one’s going to be a brute like all the rest of the Mullby men, I expect.”

Niris laughs. “How  _are_ the brutes? Apart from Thurman and Jimmy, I mean. Young Vency and Yander still stationed overseas?”

Edna shrugs wearily and brings the candy jar back to the counter. “Last we heard. Light alone can tell what the army’s up to these days.”

Niris pulls a sour face. “Well, they’re not in Westfall, I can tell you that much.”

There is a heavy silence, and then Edna lifts her gaze. “Have you been? Recently?”

Niris nods curtly.

“Well,” says Edna. She counts hard candies into a little paper bag in silence.

“There’s room at the Abbey,” Niris says quietly, “if you and Thurm need it, for Jimmy and Durleen and Sedda. I know it’s a crowd for you here, and I don’t -- I don’t think they’ll be going home any time soon, Ed.”

Edna stops counting for a moment. She squares her shoulders, takes a deep breath, and shakes her head. “No. No, it’s fine, they’re family. We’ve the room.”

“If you say.”

“There’s folk worse off, without city relatives to come to. You take those ones in instead, Niris. Save your room for them.”

“We do,” says Niris. “But there’s always going to be folk worse off. Can’t hold back from helping those as need it just because later someone else might need it more. Tomorrow comes tomorrow. Today needs managing today.”

Edna folds the edge of the paper bag neatly and sets it in front of Niris, then dashes the heels of her hands swiftly across her eyes and wipes them on her apron. She gives the priestess a stern look. “Don’t you dare be sensible at me, Niris. That’s  _my_ job and I’ll not have you putting me out of it.”

Niris sticks out her tongue, plucks up the bag of candy and tucks it into her pocket.

Edna smiles wanly and leans on the counter again. After a moment, she asks with forced nonchalance, “And what were you doing back home, then? Didn’t think you’d have business there since Byron sold the farm.”

“Work,” says Niris.

Edna quirks a brow.

“You remember Elohad Ference?”

Edna knits her brow. “The name’s familiar, but.”

Niris shrugs and doesn’t elaborate. “The Saldeans are still there. Frank, I mean, and his wife Salma. He’s got the place since William went missing. They’re staying put, but most other folk have moved on. The Jansens are long gone, and I met the Furlbrows on the road.”

“Oh,” says Edna, and her eyes glisten again. She turns her face away. “I’d never have expected Ted and Verna to pull up stakes.”

“Well,” says Niris. “Like I said. I don’t think Jimmy and Durleen will be heading home any time soon.” She cants her head and studies Edna. “That’s where some men’s grudges lead, Ed.”

Edna presses her lips together but nods.

#

Niris steps out onto the cobbled street, her laden basket over one arm, and cocks her head to listen. After a moment, she hears shrill voices over the general bustle of the Trade District, and turns her steps in that direction.

As little feet come pelting toward her, she steps out and plants herself squarely in their path. The ginger-haired boy skips to a stop and gawps up at her.

Niris raises her voice to Sermon Level. “ _William Turner_. I will take you by the ear, so help me, if you don’t give that back to your sister _this instant_.”

The sister in question, pigtailed Donna, comes flying around the corner behind Will a moment later, face tear-streaked and ruddy with fury. “Give me Betsy!” she howls, and then nearly collides with her brother, equally startled by the priestess’s stern figure.

William scowls. Donna grapples at one of his arms, and he lifts the grimy doll above his head in his other hand to keep it away from her. Niris plucks it briskly from his grasp. “Thank you,” she says, and hands it to Donna, who squeal-sobs and snatches the doll to hug it tightly to her chest.

“Now,” says Niris, before another squabble erupts. “I have a bag of strawberry drops in my pocket, enough for two to _share_ , and if you won’t tell your mother I gave them to you, then I reckon I don’t have to tell her you were fighting. What do you say?” She offers out a hand.

After a moment, Will reaches out solemnly to shake it.

“Good lad,” says Niris, and shakes the sticky little hand back firmly. “The city guards work hard enough. We must try to keep the peace among ourselves a little at a time, all right?”


End file.
